YAHF Infinite Possibilities Icarus in Freefall
by Xanders Gaurdian Angel
Summary: My take on a Far-scape\Buffy Halloween crossover. Not sure of it works really?


**Title:** YAHF – Infinite Possibilities Icarus in Freefall

**Author:** Xander's Guardian Angel

**Summary: **My take on a Far-scape\Buffy Halloween crossover. Not Sure if it works really?

**Rating:** M

**Pairing:** C\X, John\Aeryn mentioned

**Authors Notes:** I use UK not US dictionary.

2001: Just edited out some typos and added some punctuation I missed

Just something that came to me after writing Paradigm Shift

**Warnings:** Adult themes and harsh language may be contained within this fic.

**Disclaimer:** Elements of Buffy and Far-scape do not belong to me and I am making no profit from this piece of speculative fiction.

He sat eyes locked on his reflection on the mirror. He reflected that outwardly there was nothing different about him. Except for his eyes, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop himself from coming back to them. Eyes that no longer reflected the teenager he had been just forty-eighth-hours ago. Now they were haunted, the eyes of a man who had seen and done too much. They eyes of a man who'd spiralled into madness and beyond and somehow come out the other side reasonably intact.

He wanted to scream at the shear insanity of his situation. To laugh, cry and rail against it hysterically. How the Frell was he supposed to keep his sanity with what he now had stuck in his head?

The very thought made him sick to his stomach. He'd been so god damned pleased with himself; thinking he'd been so damned smart in his choice of costume. And if it hadn't been for Ethan Rayne…he would have been right. But right now, he wished he'd gone with his "Two Dollar Costume King" standby of surplus Army fatigues and a toy gun and not the fictitious character he had. Janus was probably laughing himself into an early grave – if Gods could die – Rayne, whether he knew it or not had created more chaos with selling that one costume than he could have possibly imagined, in fact if a word existed to describe the word would be "Cosmic".

He screwed his eyes shut – as if that would help – to will the voice away. Force himself to forget what he now knew, to bury the infinitely complex equations swirling around his mind like a violent torrent. He was terrified, he held an unimaginable amount of power in his hands…the kind of power that politicians riding waves of supposed Righteousness and Manifest Destiny wouldn't hesitate to use. Ultimate power and the ultimate temptation to corruption because of it, hell it would be so easy to use what he knew to rid the world of Demons, Vampires and Hell-mouths; to bring Jessie back as if he had never been gone. To reshape the universe according to his will.

_John Frelling Robert Crichton._ He though darkly.

He'd dressed as John _Frelling_ Crichton. Former IASA astronaut, turned interstellar Robinson Caruso, Universal Butt Monkey, Alien Probe Victim, and Mass Murderer; a man who should have only existed in a world of fiction, a character from a TV pilot that the networks had never picked up. If he'd only known what the writers had had in store for Jon, who the character would ultimately become and that Rayne was going to pull the shit he had he never would have bought the costume. But seeing that orange flight suit with IASA insignia was too tempting to resist, it had seemed the perfect way to drive home to Buffy that Angel wasn't her only choice.

God he was so Frelling pathetic!

"_...From every point of entry...a wormhole branches into multiple paths..." _The voice of the Alien he knew only as Einstein whispered in his mind.

Wormholes, it always came back to them. The knowledge of how to create them, traverse them…and ultimately use them as weapons of universal destruction. He could as John had said "command the stars to do" his "bidding." Alter the ebb and flow of history from what must be at a whim. If he wanted to he could elevate humanity to the status of Gods or damn them to an eternity in a Hell of their own making with one wrong move. His only consolation was, not having to deal with Harvey the neural clone. _God, _he thought darkly, _that would just be too much! _There was no way he could deal with that annoying Dranit. 

"_Screw it, _John's voice echoed in his mind_, I'm not Kirk, Spock, Luke, Buck or Arthur Frelling Dent. I'm Dorothy Gail from Kansas for Christ's sake!"_

"_...The subdivision continues until, at length, you are deposited back into space-time..."_

Rayne's spell hadn't just turned him into a generic archetype for a night, but had made him essentially John Crichton with all of his memories – as if he had lived them himself – he remembered it all; John's parents and sisters, Caroline, DK and the Farscape Project. Crais, Moldas, Scorpius, Grayza and Staleek; everything that had pushed John to the brink of insanity and beyond; and the worst part, _the absolute worst part_, was that unlike John he had _conscious access_ to the Ancients wormhole knowledge. Unlike John, he could call it up and will.

"_...The journey can be random, or with purpose..."_

He couldn't escape it.

"_...Destination...is the key..."_

In a word he was '_Frelled'_."

"_...Every portal has a distinct space-time signature...The only destinations you can realize by design are those of which you have foreknowledge...The more you travel, the more signatures you will catalogue..."_

He sighed running his hands over his face and through his hair and glanced back over his shoulder and smirked like an idiot. That was the only one good thing to come from all of this madness, like John, Xander unintentionally gone and found himself, a soul mate; though honestly he'd never expected Cordelia of all people to fit that description. Not that he was complaining mind you, especially considering how easily she could _whoop his Eema_ now. Though he never would have guessed her of all people to be an in the closet Sci-Fi geek but then life was full of little surprises. When the spell had ended, she had retained "The Radiant Aeryn Sun's" memories just as he had Johns.

"_...Our Ancients have given you the ability to recognize these subtle differences...Since every destination is surrounded by similar unrealized realities the closer you travel, the more you must maintain absolute engrossment..."_

She'd used Aeryn's tracking skills and found him at Jessie's grave going out of his mind, trying futilely to claw out his own brain. She didn't say anything, but then again she didn't need to; she had Aeyrn's memories, she knew what he was going through…she'd just held him, comforted him and tried to keep him calm. Which had ultimately led to _other things_, true neither of them had probably envisioned losing their virginities to each other or in the way they had…but having John and Aeryn's memories of a lifetime together perfecting lovemaking to a fine art probably helped them both a lot. It had just _felt so right_ to be in her arms – to clutch her tightly against his chest as she slept – feeling as though he was at peace…that he was complete for the first time in his life. He knew he didn't need to hope, he just knew that she felt the same way, they needed each other now as they needed the air to breathe. He supposed that it could have happened a lot sooner even without the spell if not for Cordy and Willow's feud in which he had chosen his side in years ago.

_"...And never return to a familiar place prior to the last time you left..."_

Not that he regretted that choice and never would. He loved Willow – like a sister and in _a totally, platonic _way – and wouldn't change that for the world, though he did wish she would stop living in a fantasy world where…well anyway that was another sore point really, would Willow accept how radically he had changed? How radically his feelings for Cordelia had changed…he just hoped that Willow could accept it and move on. He didn't want to think about what his life would be like if she didn't or worse couldn't. He was different now and _wouldn't go back_ to the way he was if given the option…yes the wormhole knowledge positively terrified him, but the shifts in his though processes, at least the ones he'd noticed were generally positive. He was more confident in himself now and knew what he wanted out of life. The near constant fear of becoming his father had fled him when he realised what he really had to be afraid of...of the power he could now wield.

"_...Or your next journey...may lead to a _permanent _unrealized reality..."_

As if she'd sense his scrutiny, Cordelia rose from the bed wrapping the bed sheets around her. She moved across the room like a wraith, not making a sound – which he attributed to Aeryns effects on her – as she reached him she slid round his body coming to rest in his lap, looking him straight in the eyes seriously. After a second, she tightened her grip on him and rested her forehead against his.

"What's wrong?" She probed.

"It's nothing, babe." He tried t evade.

She pulled back from him and glared. "That's a load of _Dren_ and you know it. You might be able to pull one over on Willow or Buffy, but not me Xander, not before and _certainly_ not now. So talk to me you _Dren for Brains."_

He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath and leaned into her embrace nuzzling Cordelia's neck. "I think you got the carrot end of this whole thing. You got all of Aeryn's Peacekeeper training and I got a life time of the acid trip from hell and a brain upgrade that if I'm not careful could destroy the world."

She giggled.

He mock glared at her. "Why you brazen...woman! Here I am pouring my heart out and you _giggle_?"

"Look at it this way," she continued to grin, "at least you won't suck at the math anymore."

"Thanks Sunshine, I really needed to hear that." He complained sarcastically.

Cordelia's embrace around him tightened and she nuzzled closer to him. "You know what I mean Xander..."

For a moment, he let himself just relax in her embrace and then answered. "I know it's just that—"

"'Just that' what?" She questioned forcefully.

"I don't see things the way I used t anymore, I've got too much of John up there now."

She sighed and twisted around in his embrace bring them both eye to eye. "Is that really such a bad thing?"

He closed his eyes and the opened them again locking back on hers. "Yes and no. The good is, like you said I 'won't suck at the math from now on...I'm more confident with myself than I thought I'd ever be – and not afraid of becoming my dad anymore."

"And the bad side of it?" She probed gently.

"When I look at the people I love, I see them the way John eventually saw his family and the rest of humanity, I see how self involved we are...how utterly insignificant and unprepared we are to face the wider universe. I see the power the wormhole knowledge could give me...how I could elevate humanity and how I could destroy it. How I could get rid of all the demons and vampires in one foul swoop...and—"

"How to bring that little cree— Bring Jessie back...that's what you really want to do isn't it?" There was no anger, no disbelief only understanding in her eyes. "But you know you can't...there'd be no way to tell what the consequences would be."

"Yeah, my life is now officially Frelled up Beyond All Recognition. And the absolute worst part is, I can't get the idea out of my head...it's so damned tempting"

She pulled him into a soul-searing kiss that left him breathless. "But you won't, promise me Xander. I have Aeryn's memories; I know what wormholes can do."

"I promise." He whispered back hoping beyond hope it was one he could keep

"Good," she said rising out of their mutual embrace, "I'm getting a shower, scrub my back?"

"And people call me a pervert!" He joked. She just swatted him upside the head. "I'll be a long in a minute Sunshine."

She gave him another probing look, then acquiesced and almost strutted out of the room. He turned back to the mirror and was unsurprised to see the spectral form of Einstein reflected in it. The alien's obsidian black eyes locked with Xander's and he spoke spoke.

"_...Time..."_

"Fly's."

"_...Time..."_

"Bandits."

"_...Time..."_

"Wounds all heals."

"_...Time..."_

Rosemary and—"

"_..._Time_..." the image stressed._

"_Time ends"_ Xander muttered in response

The End?


End file.
